Cognition

From 1998 – 2008,  English and ESOL Online were developed, firstly by Unitec NZ then  Cognition, for the Ministry of Education, as interactive online communities of practice encouraging contribution, communication and collaboration for teachers of English and  ESOL and mainstream teachers of English language learners.

These sites have supported the development of professional learning communities and assisted teachers to share best practice  and useful resources through:

• Publication of quality assured teaching resources
• An Interactive Unit Planner for English
• Professional readings, curriculum materials, research and case studies
• An NCEA programme planner, materials and links
• An Update section of news, conferences and events
• Discussion groups for ESOL, English and NCEA English teachers
• An Ask facility where teachers’ questions are answered by an expert
• A Teacher Resource Exchange to enable teachers to share and access teaching resources at all curriculum and NCEA levels

English Online has also provided these collaborative projects for students:

• Writers Window (where students publish and comment on their writing)
• Readers’ Café (a site which encourages reading for primary students)
• Bookbackchat (moderated discussion of books)
• Barb Wired Online Newspaper
• Read Hot (secondary students share book reviews)

Over the past 10 years, these sites have been visited approximately 25 million times, published many thousands of posts to the 4 listservs from their approximately 1500 members and also published many thousands of pieces of student writing, book reviews and comments in our various online projects.

They pioneered features such as the interactive unit planner, teacher resource exchanges, Ask an Expert and various short-life online workshops. Many of these successful innovations reflected a Web 2.0 philosophy before that term was ever coined.